Adoration of the Shepherds

1567

after Taddeo Zuccaro

(Italian, 1529–1566)

Culture

Netherlands

Medium

engraving

Measurements

Image: 42.8 x 29 cm (16 7/8 x 11 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 2025.202

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Location

101A Prints & Drawings

Did You Know?

The engraver Cornelis Cort was particularly known for his dramatic skies, as seen here, which he relayed with a bevy of swelled lines crossed to create moiré effects.

Description

Dutch engraver Cornelis Cort was a pivotal figure in 16th-century printmaking. Trained in Antwerp under the print publisher Hieronymus Cock, he later worked in Venice with Titian and in Rome with artists such as Taddeo Zuccaro. To translate Taddeo’s dramatic composition of the adoration of the shepherds, Cort utilized his innovative “swelling line,” a method of shaping tone and volume with swelled lines that are crossed at various angles to provide clarity and luminosity to a complicated composition.